One day my father took my brothers and I along to work with him to spread sheet-rock in an unfinished house. Around messy materials, sharp tools, and clumsy footing, my father asked of us from the top of his stilts, "Please behave. This can be dangerous. You guys can do what you want, just be safe around where we're working."

My brothers resolved to play on dirt mounds outside, but I spread all of my artsy materials across the dusty floor. For the first time I put pencil to paper to create a story: of all things, I drew comics about kittens. Cute, right? By fifth grade cat comics stole all of my free time. I even had a lending policy to allow fellow classmates to read my stories. Intermittently I heard them whisper, "Look at this page," and felt exhilaration as they opened my comic together.

At 11 I abandoned comics and handwrote 259 pages' worth of the daemon planet Ueark, which used Earth as a political trashcan, disposing of criminals by exiling there. (That story's not on here yet, but it will be one day.)

At 14 I wrote about faeries, murder, prostitution, and death omens - Sonder: Deadly Sins.

At 15 I wrote the tragic romance The Spark of Life, which fused my love of Spanish with unhappy endings. I thought it would be realistic.

At 17 I wrote a fictitious manuscript of police tapes recording 3 characters involved with the destruction of a corpse for work similar to Dr. Frankenstein's expertise - my version of the monster being a cyborg brainwashed into believing she is human. This became The Tapes.

I will continue to write. I wonder what's in store?